


foolish wand-waving and silly incantations

by rain_sleet_snow



Series: draco dormiens nunquam titillandus [7]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Primeval
Genre: Crossover, F/M, Muggle/Wizard Relations, the wizarding world post-1998 is full of traumatised Muggleborns and child soldiers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-16
Updated: 2017-01-16
Packaged: 2018-09-17 23:53:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 908
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9352085
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rain_sleet_snow/pseuds/rain_sleet_snow
Summary: Blade tells Lorraine the truth about magic.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [goldarrow](https://archiveofourown.org/users/goldarrow/gifts).



> Present for Goldarrow in the 2016 fandom_stocking. :) As a reminder/restatement that I too often forget to make, Blade and Lyle were originated by Fredbassett.

There are wizards and witches who wake up and know what's going to happen, and Jonathan Lyle is one of them, except that his clairvoyance comes to him mostly in vague feelings of unease and extremely itchy hands. ("Eczema," Julia told the Muggles next door when he was a boy, "we're trying this cream," and later that day their cat got hit by a car, and only just survived.)

 

There are wizards and witches it's dangerous to lay hands on, particularly in these postwar days with former child soldiers littering the place like so many dead copies of the Daily Prophet, and Niall Richards is one of them. Lyle doesn't like to think about the things boys like Blade and girls like Abby had to do in 1998, when adults like Lyle should have been there to stand between them and Voldemort's forces. He also doesn't like to think about Blade's way with a fine-edged knife, so he doesn't pull Blade aside for a quiet word, he just says:

 

"Oi, Blade."

 

Blade turns.

 

"Tell your Muggle girl the truth," Lyle says. "My thumbs are itching."

 

There's a strange light in Blade's Avada Kedavra-green eyes. Lyle thinks it might be nervousness, and he wonders, for a nanosecond, if he should take it back. He doesn't know that the Statute of Secrecy will fall, after all; he doesn't know if it will even be breached, though he knows James thinks it will be brought down in their lifetimes.

 

He just thinks it might happen. There's something big on the horizon, and a single death - even several deaths - isn't big enough. It's something roughly the size of the Battle of The Burrow, and Lyle hates that he knows that.

 

"Right, boss," Blade says. "Thanks for the advice."

 

***

 

A text from Blade that asks _can we talk?_  sends Lorraine into an absolute tailspin, which is probably not what he had in mind.

 

She hangs onto her courage with grim hands, and writes _yes, of course_  in return. She tries so hard to keep her mind on her work all day, and leaves fifteen minutes after everyone else, earlier than usual for her but late enough that there will be no comment. She fidgets on the bus home, and her eyes itch, because she's scared of losing Niall, and she has too much self-respect to cry on public transport in London.

 

Blade is precisely on time, and he looks frightened, too. Lorraine is not comforted by that.

 

"I'll put the kettle on," she says.

 

Over tea he tells her he loves her, and doesn't want this - whatever it is - to change anything, and asks her to trust him.

 

"I trust you," Lorraine says, completely at sea and emotionally confused, but sure of that one thing. "Now tell me why you're scared I won't."

 

Blade takes out a thin, carved wooden stick, and flicks it lightly. A shower of sparks flies from the tip, blue, green and silver; they twist and turn and curl around Lorraine's face and hands, and at first she flinches away from them - but they're not hot, they're cold, and as they land on her skin they burst like bubbles in sparkling water. She can't help a stunned, breathless little laugh. She can't help smiling when she sees Blade is too, hope growing in his eyes like the sun rising.

 

"Is it real?" she asks, and there's a note of wonder in her voice that she hasn't heard for an extremely long time.

 

"Yep," Blade says, and turns a teaspoon into a bunch of flowers: suspiciously silvery daisies, about the length of Lorraine's index finger. Which is to say, the original length of the teaspoon.

 

Blade tucks them behind her ear very shyly, and she laughs again, touching them in disbelief.

 

"What is it?" she says.

 

"Magic," Blade says, a little shamefacedly.

 

There's an extremely long pause, in which scepticism fights with the fact that Lorraine is currently wearing flowers that used to be cutlery in her hair, and loses horribly.

 

"I believe you," Lorraine says.

 

"It's a secret," Blade adds. "You can't tell anyone else. I'm sorry."

 

"I'm used to keeping secrets," Lorraine says, and it's true. Another one won't even register. "Were you supposed to tell me?"

 

"Well," he says, and looks at her, very clear, very direct. "You're only supposed to tell people you want to stay with. Spend your life with."

 

Lorraine nearly loses her breath.

 

Blade addresses the battered wood of her kitchen table. "I just - wanted you to know."

 

She takes his free hand in one of hers; he sets the stick down - the wand, Lorraine supposes - and takes her other hand, too. It's amazing how he seems exactly the same, but even with her head spinning, Lorraine knows it's because he's always been like this. Dramatic revelations or no dramatic revelations, he's always had magic running through his blood, and part of her is not entirely surprised.

 

He brings her left hand to his lips and kisses the knuckles - quiet, thoughtful, somehow vaguely awed.

 

"Thank you," he says, very softly.

 

Lorraine resists the temptation to ask him why she needs thanking.

 

"Tell me more," she says, and he draws breath.

 

***

 

The next morning he asks if she wants her teaspoon back.

 

"No," Lorraine answers, pressing a very peculiar bunch of daisies between two sheets of printer paper and a number of old economics textbooks. "I'm keeping these."

 

She doesn't just mean the flowers.

 


End file.
